I’ve often wondered what it would be like to man-mark Messi. You do your research before the match. You force him deep, you tug his shirt to keep him in place. You’ve got him close, he’s going nowhere. Then suddenly! A quick one-two, a shimmy of the body and he’s away bounding towards your goal, he picks his spot and shoots, of course, he never misses. You fall to the turf deflated. Your teammates try to rally you but you know you’ve been made to look a fool. I no longer have to wonder, because covering the competitive Fortnite scene can’t be so different.

You think you have it all worked out. You’ve done your research, keep up to date with everything and then one tweet and it’s all changed.

So let me take you through what happened this week and because I am attempting to do a guide here… we’ll profile some of the top teams as well.

Keemstar and Drama. Name a more iconic Duo.

LET’s GET RIGHT INTO THE NEWS!

Usually, it’s the players that produce the drama but it was the organizers going at it this week. Friday Fortnite hosted by UMG/Keemstar was played on, you guessed it, Fridays and it had become a popular fixture in the Fortnite calender.

Epic’s own 8-week Summer Skirmish Series had been scheduled for Saturdays but with the debacle last week everything changed. In what can only be seen as a power play by Epic they announced their tournament would run on both Friday and Saturday. With a similar public lobby format. To top it all off they invited most of the high profile players including some that were due to play in the Keemstar event.

Keemstar took to Twitter to blast Epic for “not working with him” and stating his event would run on Friday regardless. The fighting talk didn’t last long though, as it dawned on Keemstar that every high profile player had opted to play in the Epic tournament. He knew he was in trouble. He tried to reschedule for Sunday. but then UMG, the money men, stated the had ended their association with the tournament.

And with that, the event that gave us our first taste of competitive Fortnite was over. And while it is sad, the tournament only ever truly felt like a placeholder with its “make do” rule set and lack of custom games. Bigger and better run tournaments surely on the way but for those that where there we will never forget these initial forays into proper competitive Fortnite and for that, we thank you Keemstar (Phrases you never thought you would utter #429).

Now, let’s take a moment to say goodbye.

Press F to pay respects.

To see a full list of previous winners and highlights of Friday Fortnite check out part one of this guide.

PUB ROMP STOMP

‘PUB STOMP ROMP’ was the name given to the event but so in flux is the Fortnite pro scene that by Day 2 it had changed to ‘Highest Score Wins.’ I preferred the first one.

So after all the drama what did we actually get? A pretty good tournament to be fair but not without its problems with Day 1 being mired in a cheating scandal that raised more questions than it answered.

As expected there was a change in format which you can see above. On Friday the North American players would play and then Saturday would see the Europeans get their turn. The top players from PC and Playstation were invited including Ninja, Daequan, Dr.Lupo, Tfue, and Cloak – it was the best pool of players we have had for a competition yet.

Day 1 started with an apology and explanation from Epic Stating they were learning as they went, and because of the previous lag issues they would be changing to a format that uses public matches. It’s expected that next week it will be back to custom games.

A couple of notes about the viewing experience. It was much improved on last week. The casting was provided by Zeke and Hamlinz from TSM. Having Hamlinz, a professional player onboard, gave the commentary more insight making it more enjoyable to watch.

Of course with $10,000 on the line for 20 eliminations it was great to see players pushing hard for kills and what better feeling than watching someone who might not be in the running to win pull off this.

Here's the kill that made me $10,000. So emotional and Inspiring to have 1,800 people watching me. Just look how happy my Dad and the chat was. This was one of greatest days of my life. Love you guys so much!❤https://t.co/IoIUvj8dyG

The First Scandal of Competitive Fortnite

Okay so i’ll give you the quick version of what happened. The overall winner, iDropz_bodies, was playing on PlayStation. He also wasn’t streaming. So as the tournament progressed there was this strange situation of there being no footage to watch from the player that was winning the tournament. And he wasn’t just winning, he was destroying the competition. At one point he had more points than 2nd place and he had played 4 games less!

The community went crazy. Rumours abound he was using keyboard and mouse on PlayStation. That he was getting people to queue with him so that they could feed him kills and so on.

After the tournament, he streamed his replays and it only added fuel to the fire. Viewers still weren’t convinced that there wasn’t some sort of collusion with other players and there were calls for Epic to disqualify him.

Having looked at everything I’m undecided. Epic has awarded him the win and declared every single one of his results as legitimate and the evidence they present is pretty unanimous. You can have a look for yourself here. An important point to note from their statement is Epic have stated keyboard and mouse use on console is not against the rules.

What this issue does raise more than anything else is that in the long term different platforms can’t compete together.

There are differences in hardware, skill level and too many variables for it considered fair to anyone involved. With this amount of money on the line, it has to change.

Epic has done well to learn their lessons and this week threw up another.

A More Peaceful Day 2

With Day 2 it was time for the EU players to flex but the with doubts over the NA winner it kicked off much the same way Day 1 did, with an explanation from Epic Games – this time confirming iDropz_bodies win.

With that out the way it, it was on to the tournament. The top EU players are unknown to the vast majority but it won’t be like that for long. The EU Scene is stacked with talent and anyone who tuned in was able to witness some amazing hames and a few building strats that no one had really seen before.

Team Solary deserve a special mention. An org from France featuring guys like Kinstaar. The team played the tournament via LAN and it was cool to see such a tight-knit group playing together. Watch out for these guys in the future.

Play of the entire weekend has to go to Turkish player Refl7ction with this jaw-dropping reset to keep him in the game.

Final Thoughts

So a much-improved tournament this week. The presentation was better. There was no lag in the games and we saw some amazing Fortnite. The only real downside was the fact that it was a solo’s tournament when this game is at it’s best when played as a team.

Next will be revealing as Epic intend to switch back to the custom games. I’ll be honest I would be really surprised if they went ahead with that. Without massively changing the meta of the game I can’t see how they can manipulate the players to play differently through the rule set. Unless they drop all pretenses of the Battle Royale format which they are desperate not to do. Check back with us because of course, we will have all the analysis and latest news.

Sources say it will be a team-based event so it’s time to have a look at the top teams playing Fortnite.

The Top Teams – North America

As Fortnite has grown Orgs old and new have flooded in, snapping up talent and looking for those unsigned gems.

There are two that have stood from the rest of the pack – FaZe clan and TSM. Featuring some of the best and most well-known players they have dominated the tournaments so far.

Here we will profile them and explain how they made it to the top.

FaZe Clan

The team with the best claim to being the number one organization in the game is FaZe Clan. FaZe is well known in the esports world and it’s no surprise that they snapped up some of the best players early on.
Their roster includes Jaomock, Tennp0, SpaceLyon, Yelo and of course, the star attractions and the best duo in the game Tfue and Cloak. These two have exploded in popularity in the last couple of months due to their performances in Keemstars Friday Fortnite’s winning it an unprecedented 4 times. No other duo had even won it twice. Cloaks game knowledge and Tfue’s amazing mechanical skills have set the bar for Duo’s going forward.

Cloak has also impressed in solo’s taking 2nd place in this week’s Summer Skirmish NA and was the highest-ranked PC player.

FaZe set a new world record for kills in a squad game with a whopping 54 kills. Watch it here to give you an idea what these guys are all about

Team SoloMid

Probably the most well-known team would be Team SoloMid another long-running esports organization. TSM boasts top streamer/pro’s in Myth, Hamlinz, and Daequan. The 4th member was Camills, but he was benched this week after a number of poor performances in big games. AimbotCalvin has stepped into his place.

Myth is the team captain and the youngest member of the Org. He became wildly popular on Twitch just as Fortnite blew up. Being one of the first to master building. In time though others caught up to him and his progress seemed to stall. You can’t fault his determination though and he’s grinding to get better and his performances at the big tournaments are steadily improving. With his team behind him, everything is in place for him to have a very successful career at the top.

Hamlinz and Daequan are successful streamers in their own right and are crazily gifted players. Hamlinz has a mastery of every element of Fortnite while Daeuqan is known as a straight slayer.

TSM have fared pretty well in tournaments with the duo of Myth and Hamlinz having placed 3rd, 2nd and finally taking home the win in week 7 of Keemstar’s Friday Fortnite.

Daequan has not fared as well having been paired with Camills but few people doubt he’ll be picking up wins in the near future.

And catch Myth and Hamlinz slay vs Tenpp0 and Banks on their way to winning $20,000

Honorable mentions

Team Liquid – Another huge org, another amazing group of players. Team Liquid formed their Fortnite team in June poaching 72hrs from FaZe who joined Strafesh0t, Poach, and Chap. They have quickly established themselves as a force. 72hrs and Chap coming 3rd as a duo in week 1 of the Summer Skirmish series. Chap also placed a very respectable 7th in this solo competition with Poach coming in 15th.

100 Thieves – An org with a history in CoD and LoL have snapped up a number of promising players. Parallax has been impressive, placing highly in every tournament he’s entered. His best showing being a 2nd in Keemstars tournament. He is joined by Kenith, Risker and SirDimetrious.

What did you make of Week 2 of the Fortnite Summer Skirmish? Should Idropz_bodies been disqualified? Who is the best org TSM or FaZe? Be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments down below and check back with us next for Part 3. Where we will be delving into the competitive meta and profiling some of the best solo players.

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